The Cats and Me are about to Fight...

So today I think I got a bit of the nesting instinct bug and decided I'd do some cleaning and picking up around the house.  I also thought that I'd make Amy a sunflower garden (she's always wanted one) out in our backyard so she'd have a nice place to relax while she's home with the baby.  After I finished I wanted to take some pictures, including some shots using the timer on the camera so we could both be in it.  Well, I sat the camera on the table outside and realized it wasn't high enough. Amy remembered that we had a box in the basement which would make the camera higher, so I took the camera inside, set it on the table and headed down to the basement to get the box.  Now, the cats had been meowing like crazy (mainly Peanut) because we had the back door open and they could see us out there but couldn't get to us.  When I came in Peanut was on the table (which he never is, should have known something would happen when I saw that) and hopped off right away.  Well, when I started going down the stairs I heard a sound that sounded very much like a small plastic box hitting the floor.  Sure enough, when I went back I found my camera on the floor and the cats wandering around it meowing.  I figured that it would be able to withstand a little fall like that, but I was apparently wrong.  Something was definitely rattling around inside and you couldn't see anything when you tried to take a picture.  I fiddled with the thing for a good 10 minutes steadily getting more mad at the cats (as I assume Peanut was the culprit, though I have no proof) but had not luck fixing it.  I looked for repair shops in the area but most charge about what the camera costs to fix it and they just send it back to the manufacturer anyway.  The bigger problem is that the whole reason I got the camera in the first place is so we'd have a good indoor camera for me to take pictures of the baby.  So I really don't have 6 weeks to wait for someone to fix the thing anyways.  Of course cat related incidents are not covered by the warranty, so as a last ditch effort we figured maybe we could dismantle the camera and put it back together! We knew it was a long shot, but it was either that or just chuck the thing straight in the trash.  The good news is that I did managed to find what the problem was.  After disassembling the entire thing I found that the end of a little plastic piece in the lens snapped off (about half a millimeter in length) which caused the lens to dislodge.  The bad news is that there was no way I could fix it, so into the trash the whole thing went anyway.  I told Peanut that he now has to get a job to pay me back for the camera, but without hands and the ability to speak he's kind of useless, so I'm not holding up high hopes that he'll get a job in the near future.  I then went online to try to buy a replacement and it turns out that I guess I got a deal when I bought it the first time, because now it's 60 more bucks than when I bought it 4 months ago!  We managed to find a cheaper version eventually and are having it expedited, so Amy has to hold off until at least Wednesday otherwise I have to use the camera which has a non-working flash and that could be slightly problematic.  I guess this is just a little prelude to the rest of my life, as I highly doubt this will be the last expensive thing that gets broken, the only difference is that I'll have a harder time deciphering who the culprit is!

Before the cats "helped":

After the cats "helped":